hurricane sandy, i hope, reminded us of that. already sea level rise is up about 8 inches over the past century. now, these changes are very evident to rhode islanders. we've been monitoring the ocean for centuries. just outside narragansett barricks the crew of the brenton reef ship took measurements between 1878 and 1942. we've been at this a while. alarmingly, the modern temperature record from points around narragansett pay shows that since the 1960's, the annual temperature in narragansett bay has increased about 4 degrees fahrenheit. this has real life effects, crushing our winter flounder fishery, for instance. for instance. long-term data from the hide gauges in new port, rhode island, show an increase in average sea level of nearly 10 inches since 1930, and the rate of sea level rise at newport is accelerating, too. in southern rhode island, local erosion rates doubled, from 1990 to 2006. and some of our freshwater wetlands near the coast are already transitioning to salt marsh. oceans warm and expand. snow, glaciers, an